ICYMI: The Best of December 2016 on Moviemaker.com

What do winter weather, the holiday season and the end of 2016 have in common? They’re all pretty damn cool. So was December 2016 on Moviemaker.com, the best of which we’ve bundled up for you in our monthly round-up.

Plow through our staff’s top picks of the past month’s indie film art and business coverage.

In this detailed interview, DP Linus Sandgren goes deep into everything visual in La La Land: from making custom Panavision lens and shooting in scope, to capturing single-take dances and observing the colors of the sky.

“It’s a Steadicam that I’m carrying and I’m running,” cinematographerCharlotte Bruus Christensen recalls of shooting the single-location cinematic adaptation of Fences. “Denzel [Washington] kept saying, ‘My direction to you is this is like music, music.’”

Acting and activism have long been the yin and yang to Tippi Hedren’s storied career in the arts and, later, in animal rights initiatives. In this interview, she reflects on her courageous work in the proverbial lion’s den—be it on set with Hitchcock or in the political arena fighting for the jungle cats with whom she once shared the screen.

John Cassavetes was notorious for being intensely private, which is why this interview with his dear friend and fellow indie film titan Peter Bogdanovich is an essential window into the essence of his artistic and personal selves.

In our new video series Frame of Mind, moviemakers walk and talk you through their films’ key scenes. Here, Darren Lynn Bousman discusses shooting on location in New Orleans; why he used no close-ups to introduce his villain; how he cut down talky dialogue; and capturing the hyper-stylized “adult fairy tale” vibe of his latest indie horror feature, Abattoir, in two exclusive clips.